JPMorgan Chase Can Check Their Butts
A young entrepreneur duped the bank out of $175 million. Now her defense lawyers are billing the bank for cellulite butter.
The nation’s largest bank deserves more humiliation for the ridiculous deal it cut with a 28-year-old entrepreneur to acquire a bogus student-loan website that she’d named Frank.
So here it comes:
In 2021, JPMorgan Chase bought Frank for a staggering $175 million.
The bank loved its young founder Charlie Javice so much that it also made her managing director. It even planned to pay her as much as $20 million more. Then it found out she was a fraud.
Frankly, when JPMorgan Chase bought Frank, it didn’t do its homework.
Frankly, this is a bank with $4.3 trillion in assets. Frankly, it’s an investment banking giant that does multibillion-dollar deals on Wall Street all day long. Frankly, what it bought was a bogus email list.
Read More: JPMorgan Chumps (Business Blunders)
Javice was sentenced to more than seven years in prison in September, but she remains free on bail pending her appeal. She’s still living – where else – but South Florida, where she was teaching Pilates wearing an ankle bracelet.
Frankly, JPMorgan is paying her legal fees. Frankly, it may even be on the hook to pay for her pricey appeal.
Yes, frankly, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay Javice’s monstrous legal bills when it acquired Frank. And, frankly, the court is holding the giant bank to the contract.
Lawyers for Javice and her convicted co-executive Oliver Amar have billed JPMorgan Chase for $142 million. By contrast, the legal defense of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and her fake blood-testing technology cost $30 million.
So, frankly, how did this happen?
Javice had 19 lawyers appearing in court for her. Amar had 16. The legal bills also included charges for luxury hotels, fine meals and of course, cellulite butter.
JPMorgan Chase keeps fighting the charges. Delaware Magistrate Christian Wright has said he would continue to hear arguments from both sides.
We could get a decision any day now. Meantime, Wright holds a rare opportunity to charge a blundering Wall Street banking behemoth for cellulite butter.
JPMorgan Chase attorney Michael Pittinger accused Javice and her legal team of “extreme abuses” in running up expenses. Oh, and he just had to bring up the cellulite butter for dramatic effect.
Cellulite butter can cost as much as $600 for a small tube, but often goes for around $45 or less.
“I don’t know how any counsel in good faith could submit something like that for reimbursement of expenses, saying it’s reasonably related to the defense of a criminal action,” Pittinger said.
This calls for a re-butt-al. Because arguably, cellulite butter is more related than he thinks. Like cellulite butter, white collar defense attorneys cover up blemishes, cost way too much money, and may not deliver satisfactory results.
I don’t know who should be more embarrassed by the headlines that reported Pittinger’s cellulite claim: JPMorgan or Javice and her legal defense team?
Javice spokesperson Juda Engelmayer told the The New York Post that the cellulite butter wasn’t Javice’s expense.
If you don’t believe it, just check her thighs and her butt.
“[Javice] invites anyone to look at photos of Charlie in her Pilates outfit,” Englemayer actually told The Post. “It’s obvious she never purchased the so-called ‘cellulite cream,’”
Frankly, Pittinger didn’t do his client any favors. Frankly, he is now going to have to file a discovery motion. Frankly, he’s going to have to check the butts of Javice’s 19 defense attorneys if he’s ever going to get the bottom of this ridiculous bill.
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Wouldn't this make a great Perry Mason episode?!?!
You’re just buttering us up, frankly.